Earlier this year, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools unveiled plans to overhaul its magnet lottery system. The district has spent the past few weeks holding community engagement sessions to gather feedback.
This would be a substantial change. Magnet schools or programs don’t have an attendance boundary — students can apply from anywhere in the county through a lottery. But these programs have a specific academic focus, or theme, like creative arts or world languages. CMS currently has 16 themes, but this proposal would cut that to six and eliminate programs at schools that are underenrolled or duplicative.
The goal is quality over quantity, and to make sure every transportation zone has a clear K-12 pathway for each theme.
CMS says many parents participate in the lottery to get their kids into a school other than their assigned neighborhood school. Administrators describe this as a “school choice” model, and they argue it leads to uneven enrollment, with some schools garnering high waitlists and others with empty seats.
By creating higher-quality magnet programs implemented with fidelity in each transportation zone, the district says it wants to shift to a “program choice” model — where families choose a program for the unique academic experience a particular theme offers.
WFAE has been attending these community engagement sessions and speaking to families.
What are families saying?
At several community engagement sessions over the last few weeks, many parents told WFAE they liked the concept. Some said they believed the proposal would create a simpler magnet program with clearer, more equitable options.
Those with concerns were more focused on specifics — some had questions or were trying to clear up misinformation. Others were looking for clarity or wanted to share feedback on challenges they see with their specific kids’ school and transportation options.
Katie Burns, for instance, has kids in magnet programs at Shamrock Gardens Elementary and Piedmont Middle School. She said under the plan, her younger child’s path in her transportation zone would go to a different middle school, which is farther from their house. She wanted to share that with the district. But she still thinks the plan has potential.
“And I think that this is a really good initiative in limiting the amount of magnet programs, so it's less confusing to parents. I think that that's great. I think that overall this plan looks pretty decent,” Burns said at a community engagement session at Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences. “They just need to figure out those individual gaps and what that looks like in their planning process.”
But even parents who understood the logic behind the proposal noted that major changes like this are stressful. Families often pick magnet programs with a years-long plan in mind. A system-wide change like this can be disruptive.
Parent Logan Reilly, for instance, said she’d done significant research on her kids’ magnet programs and all of their future options. But the changes might force her to reconfigure those plans.
“To know that might go out the window is, I mean, really just sad at the end of the day,” Reilly said.
Families at SAIL voice concerns
Families whose kids are in the world languages program have voiced some of the most robust concerns, particularly those at the South Academy of International Languages, or SAIL.
At a recent community engagement session at South Mecklenburg High School, many SAIL parents said the current plan might impact their kids’ ability to continue learning their chosen language. While the new plan would guarantee a K-12 world language program in every transportation zone, not every school offers the same languages.
Here’s an example: Right now, SAIL is the only K-8 school that offers Chinese in the green and blue transportation zones. Under the proposal, families in the green zone would lose bus access to the school. The school assigned to the green zone — Charlotte East Language Academy — currently doesn’t have a Chinese program.
Parents who want their kids to continue learning Chinese can still apply to send their kids to SAIL, but only if they provide their own transportation. For parents like Bhavna Gvalani, whose daughter is in the Chinese program, that’s just not feasible.
“The one thing that was particularly important to our family was consistency and for her to be able to learn a second language,” Gvalani said. “And it's a little disturbing that this would not be a possibility for her and that we would have to go to a neighborhood school where she would feel completely like a fish out of water.”
Administrators at the session told families that the plan is a draft, noted that this has been a common complaint, and seemed open to bringing this back to consider some tweaks.
In fact, Superintendent Crystal Hill hinted at this on a recent episode of Charlotte Talks, particularly noting that SAIL’s Japanese program — the only one of its kind in North or South Carolina — should remain a district-wide magnet with district-wide transportation.
Any approved changes wouldn’t take effect until the 2027-28 school year. But CMS has said it would continue to provide transportation for one more year to students entering the terminal grades of 5th, 8th or 12th grade so they can finish out the remaining time at their school.
Middle College proposal resurfacing
One of these proposals would turn the district’s four middle colleges into early colleges — the same proposal came up in 2024, but was rejected by the school board after community pushback, mostly from middle college students.
Both of these programs give students a chance to work toward their associate’s degree while finishing high school. But early college starts in 9th grade, while middle college starts in 11th grade.
The change would create more early college seats across the district. CMS says its early colleges have waitlists, while middle colleges often struggle to fill their seats. And the district has also said dual enrollment at a college remains an option for students who want to pursue a college-based program later in their high school years.
While this hasn’t come up at the community engagement sessions attended by WFAE, some members of the middle college community told WFAE they were frustrated to see this proposal resurfacing.
Richard Maximov is a Levine Middle College student. He told WFAE that middle college gives kids more flexibility and time to figure out if it’s right for them. Because all of those kids have chosen to leave their neighborhood high school, it creates a smaller, like-minded community of students, he argued.
“By taking that away, you’re not only taking the opportunity away from students to better themselves and get a better education, but you’re also breaking down that culture that we spent so long making,” he said.
He argued that if there are seats to fill in middle colleges, CMS should do more to improve the programs and attract more students instead of changing it to something else entirely.
What’s next?
These proposals are just drafts at this point. Superintendent Crystal Hill will make her final recommendation to the school board April 28. That should incorporate whatever feedback they’ve gotten from these sessions.
Then there will be a public hearing on May 12, and the board will vote May 26. If approved, the changes don’t take effect until the 27-28 school year.
You can view information from the community engagement session and offer feedback online here.
